[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 165 (Monday, October 29, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H12136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       LIEUTENANT MICHAEL MURPHY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my good friend and 
colleague, Mr. Bishop from Long Island, for asking several of us to pay 
tribute to Lieutenant Michael Murphy, who received the Medal of Honor.
  Madam Speaker, I did not know Michael Murphy personally, but I knew 
of him. I have a love of history, and particularly military history. 
And I know that every generation of Americans has confronted challenge 
and threat, grave and great, with the heroism of Michael Murphy. Every 
generation has produced its Michael Murphys.
  In August of 1776, in the Battle of New York, there were men like 
Michael Murphy. They were surrounded by the most powerful navy in the 
world, the British Navy, And American democracy could have been snuffed 
out at that point. But men like Michael Murphy took risk, sacrificed 
their lives, fought on, and replaced British monarchy with American 
democracy. They fell, Madam Speaker, so that I could stand here in this 
body, the Congress of the United States, the people's House of the 
oldest democracy on Earth.
  There were Mike Murphys in Gettysburg, in the Fighting 69th and other 
brigades, at Shiloh and Fredericksburg. There were plenty of Union 
generals who told President Lincoln that they didn't really need to 
fight the Civil War; you could have slavery on one side of the line and 
we could have freedom on the other and that would be fine. But there 
were men like Michael Murphy who understood that slavery in the United 
States was not an option. They fought on; they refused to retreat. They 
would not surrender. They would not lose their ground. They fell so 
that my children could grow up in a country of liberty versus tyranny.
  Madam Speaker, there were Mike Murphys who grew up on Long Island. 
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Madam Speaker, stood where you are now 
and summoned America into the greatest battle of the 20th century, 
against Nazism and fascism, there were Mike Murphys from Long Island 
who stood up, who stormed beaches, who leapt hills, who ran through 
Europe, freed France, liberated concentration camps, went to the 
Pacific, freed the Pacific and came back, looked at the Moon and said, 
we could go there, too. Many of those heroes, Madam Speaker, are from 
Long Island, and we value and thank every one. Only 18 Long Islanders, 
Madam Speaker, have received the Medal of Honor, Mike Murphy and 17 
others.
  Madam Speaker, Mike Murphy fell in a long and noble tradition of 
those who made the ultimate sacrifice. He is linked in time with those 
I mentioned: in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Vietnam, in Korea, in 
Normandy, and stretching back to the earliest battles and the first 
battlefield.
  Let me close, Madam Speaker, with a passage that could have been 
written about Michael Murphy, although it was uttered almost 2,500 
years ago. This is what Pericles said at the funeral of fallen 
soldiers:
  ``In the fighting, they thought it more honorable to stand their 
ground and suffer death than to give in and save their lives. So they 
fled from the reproaches of men, abiding with life and limb the brunt 
of battle, and in a small moment of time, the climax of their lives, a 
culmination of glory, not of fear, they were swept away from us.''
  So and such they were, these men, worthy of their city. Madam 
Speaker, Michael Murphy went to Afghanistan to defend the City of New 
York, which was attacked out of Afghanistan on 9/11. He joins a proud 
and noble tradition of history's best. My thoughts, my prayers and my 
condolences go to him and his family. And he will always be remembered 
in this Congress as the citadel of freedom in the world, for fighting 
for that freedom.

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